Seeing that everyone was relaxed, he suddenly said: "Your Majesty, Weichen just remembered something, and now I have time to say it." Even if our Chinese empire wants to build the Trans-Siberian Railway now, it may not be able to do so for the time being. The reason is that there are not enough rails at all!

Unless the Ministry of Public Works can provide a large amount of steel to make rails in a short period of time, or the Foreign Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce can immediately purchase a large number of steel and even rails as soon as possible, a total of 1.25 million tons of rails, even if only 6,000 kilometers are built today, 600,000 tons of steel rails will be required.

Now there is not much rail stock on the part of the Railway Division. In recent years, with the exception of warships such as Krupp artillery and ironclad ships, as well as some machinery and equipment, more than 80 percent of the steel in the major steel mills under the Ministry of Public Works has been used to make steel rails, which are transported to the front-line construction sites of the railways as soon as they are sent to the railway department.

There are only 70,000 tons of steel rails under the railway department of the entire Ministry of Communications, of which 40,000 tons are being transferred to Sichuan and Shaanxi to build the railway lines from Xi'an to Chengdu and Chengdu to Xuzhou, and the other 30,000 tons are reserved for the railway between Lanzhou and Yili.

In addition to the 70,000 tons, Wechen estimates that the entire empire, including the major steel mills and warehouses under the Foreign Trade Bureau, and the warehouses of the provincial supply and marketing cooperatives, will not have too much steel. ”

Hearing Cheng Hengsheng's words, Feng Yunshan suddenly came to his senses: Yes, with the current stock of steel in the Chinese Empire, it is simply not enough to build such a long-distance railway.

He was thinking about the investment of 1.2 billion saint yuan just now, but he didn't care much about the problem of 1.25 million tons of steel rails. Now after Cheng Hengsheng's reminder, he came back to his senses: No, he remembered that it was a problem to need so many rails, and he also asked Zeng Guanlan how much steel production in the empire is now, and how much it imports every year. Unexpectedly, Zeng Guanlan was brainless, and he had been trying to persuade himself not to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, and he had been persuading himself from the investment of 1.2 billion holy yuan. Zeng Guanlan didn't answer his steel question at all, and he was forgotten in a fit of anger.

As the emperor of the Chinese Empire, in recent years, the empire has gradually been on the right track, and its development has also moved forward in the direction he set. This is exactly the purpose of his cabinet, originally he wanted to establish an empire similar to a constitutional monarchy, the prime minister of the cabinet is responsible for himself, the emperor, and all specific affairs are handled by the prime minister and cabinet ministries.

Because of this, Feng Yunshan, the shopkeeper, did not know very well how much the empire's steel output was now, he just remembered that three or four years ago, the steel output of the Chinese Empire reached 100,000 tons, and the pig iron output was 1.3 million tons. Because of the construction of railways at that time, the construction of other factories, the manufacture of military weapons, and the import of nearly 35,000 tons of steel from the West that year, Feng Yunshan had some impressions.

Now, although three or four years have passed, even with the leapfrog development of the empire, it is impossible to produce millions of tons of steel in just a few years. What's more, every year is in short supply, and the governors of many provinces still cry when they go to Beijing at the end of the year to report on their work, and they ask the imperial court to approve more shares for them. Even if there is a lot of production and imports, it is estimated that there will not be much left, and it will have been robbed out long ago.

Thinking of this, Feng Yunshan's heart moved, and he wanted to know the situation of his empire in terms of steel, so he asked: "Zeng Aiqing, Cheng Aiqing, the two of you have the most to deal with steel, tell me, how is the current steel production and import situation of the empire?" ”

Cheng Hengsheng obviously doesn't know very well, he is only the deputy minister of the Ministry of Communications, and his mind is focused on transportation construction such as railways and official roads. It is only because of the need for steel rails for the construction of railways that I know a little about steel.

Zeng Guanlan obviously had a general understanding of the imperial steel industry, and immediately replied: "Back to Your Majesty, Wechen is confused, Wechen forgot to report the supply of rails to Your Majesty just now, and I ask Your Majesty for forgiveness!"

Wei Chen remembered some industrial data, so he recited it to His Majesty. In the six years of Taisheng, the national coal output reached 40 million tons, and the pig iron output reached 1.3 million tons. The scale of steel output was 103,000 tons, and the cement output was 4 million tons; in the seventh year of Taisheng (1860), the national coal output reached 60 million tons, the pig iron output reached 1.6 million tons, the steel output reached 145,000 tons, and the cement output reached 7 million tons; in the eighth year of Taisheng, the national coal output reached 85 million tons, the pig iron output reached 2.1 million tons, the steel output reached 180,000 tons, and the cement output reached 12 million tons; in the ninth year of Taisheng, that is, last year, the entire empire's coal output reached 120 million tons, pig iron output reached 2.6 million tons, steel output reached 235,000 tons, and cement output reached 15 million tons； This year is approaching the end of the year, and although the data has not yet been counted, it is expected that the entire empire will produce 150 million tons of coal, 3.2 million tons of pig iron, 300,000 tons of steel, and 20 million tons of cement.

During this period, the annual import of rails and other steel from Western countries increased from 40,000 tons in the sixth year of Taisheng to 82,000 tons last year. And most of these are steel rails used in the construction of railways in various places. It is precisely because we have purchased too much steel from Western countries that the price of steel overseas has soared in recent years, and I can't even buy more if I want to.

It has not been possible to fully calculate the exact amount of steel consumed and used by the empire each year, but it is certain that there is almost no stagnation after the output and import of pig iron and steel almost every year. In terms of pig iron, the supply and marketing social storage part of the provinces is only used for large factories and hardware factories in the provinces as raw materials for stock transfer, and the stock volume of the general transit period will not exceed half a year. There are also frequent complaints about the shortage of steel in various places, and because of this, one of the main imports of the Foreign Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce from the foreigners is steel. ”

Feng Yunshan nodded, from the data that Zeng Guanlan said just now, the output of various major basic material resources in the Chinese Empire, especially the output of steel, is actually not low, compared with other countries, it has already jumped significantly. Probably except for Britain, the Chinese Empire has produced more steel than all other countries in the world. But now that many of Britain's overseas colonies have been forced to abandon, their economy and trade have fallen badly, and Britain's overall strength has been hit hard, so that the growth rate of Britain's steel production will be seriously slowed.